school projects

Art against walls – 30 years fall of the Berlin Wall

For the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, we are planning the school project Art against walls.

Especially the Nachmauer generation should be given the opportunity to deal with the great moment of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which she herself has not experienced. The topic will be discussed age appropriate in the classes (s.u.).

In art class we paint wall miniatures, which we participate in the art action Art against walls have received (an alternative idea for other schools: paint wood cubes, which then fall over in the domino effect).

The children paint the segments of the wall, just like the people who at wall times designed the west side of the wall with slogans and works of art against oppression and for peace and freedom.

Every child has artistic freedom in designing the piece of the wall. This emphasizes individuality and diversity in a final community action (s.u.).

At the end of the action day, each child is allowed to take home the piece of the wall to commemorate this memorable day.

Fortunately, the action day of the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall did not fall into the water. In good weather the day before could be sprayed (6a). Also the speech and performance of the students of the classes 6c and 6d worked great!

In each class, the miniature bricks to the Berlin Wall were put together on tables and decorated the area with houses, cars, figures (grades 1-3), in the older students could the border area with barriers, sand stripes o.ä. be rebuilt.

In the second lesson the children were allowed to look at the walls and the exhibition of the other classes.

In the third hour the speech and performance took place in the school yard:

A white chalk line (based on the Berlin Wall) was painted the day before on the schoolyard. (The chalk line will be over the weekend "disappear", the districts (s.u.) are then reunited)

Stencils of the Berlin district names were sprayed to the right and left of the white wall line .

On the day of the action, children stood on this wall line and held up a 12m long gray cloth on a cue (wall construction).

During the celebration, other students showed the landmarks painted by them (see above), so that one could see which parts of Berlin were formerly separated.

After a Class 6d speech on the historical development until November 9, the wall fell at the end or let the children drop the gray cloth.

At the end of the performance all present sang the songs together: Wind of change and The thoughts are free.

In the fourth hour, contemporary witnesses reported on their personal fall from the wall or their escape from the GDR! There were readings or pupils visited the exhibition in the boulevard. In the 5th lesson, the wall in the classroom fell and the pieces of wall were given home!

The finished landmarks:

Such was the performance in my mind;) .

Pictures of the action day

1.Preparation the day before: spray action class 6a

2. Exhibition of the wall segments in the classes

At this point, I would like to thank all students for their creativity and ingenuity with which they build their walls "decorated" and have gathered a lot of information material! And a special thank you to my colleagues for their support of this exhibition!

3. Performance and address of grade 6d and 6c students in the schoolyard

After the fall of the wall. but the miniature wall was rebuilt immediately;)!

4th Exhibition of pieces of the Berlin Boulevard on Schloßstraße

The exhibition is open until the 30th of November!

Literature on the fall of the Berlin Wall:

Picture book after a true story: With the balloon into freedom, Torben Kuhlmann, Kristen Fulton, Jacob Hein, Ravensburger, from 2.-3. Class, 20 €

The guinea pig, Katja Ludwig, cbj Publisher: A book with two stories, a West story and an Eastern story! 13 € Theme: Living with the Wall in West and East, nice story to read aloud, from 2nd / 3rd class

Fritzi was there – A Wendewundergeschichte , Hannah Schott, velcro, 8 €, The fall of 1989 is told from the child’s perspective (GDR)! From 8 years !!Was filmed and is currently in the cinema!!

The puller break in the valley of the unsuspecting, Franziska Gehm, Klett, 12,95 € Rather what insider, because you have to explain many things about the everyday life in the East, which today no students are familiar!" Age from 10-12 years

LOGO non-fiction book: How was the wall??, Verena Glanos, buoy, 10 €

Practical implementation

I discussed the fall of the Wall with the children in two ways:

Class 1-3

The children build on a large Berlinkarte with building blocks, human. Plastic figures (families, grandparents etc), cars and trams a city (see the first two pictures above). The course of the Berlin Wall is marked as a red line, but the pupils are not aware of the meaning. I tell the children about building the wall and put on the red line the wall segments (which should be painted afterwards). Families are going through "mean" Construction separated, the cars and commuter trains can not continue. Conversations about the feelings and feelings of the people who were separated at once follow. 28 years was the Berlin Wall !! I tell the children as appropriate to their age how the Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989, take away the pieces of the wall and report on the 30th anniversary we want to celebrate!!

Class 4-6

A clothesline is stretched through the class and is hung by me with towels that will share the classroom. A group of children is led through the rear door into the separated room, the door is closed again. The rest of the class enters the room through the front door. The children of the class are visually separated. I ask the children on both sides of the "towels" to describe how they feel: friends are missing; the room has become smaller; Things that are on the other side can not be achieved, are missing " classes". The children experience as emotionally as at least for a short time a separation feels. Of course, the first group thinks it’s stupid that they can not leave the room. The students quickly come to the symbolism, in the media, much is being reported about the fall of the Berlin Wall. Together we open our wall and are reunited! Here are some short YouTube videos: Simpleshow explains the fall of the Berlin Wall; Walled in-the inner Germanborder, Spiegel TV (for children) November 9, 1989 and wall pictures, which address both the historical causes of the construction of the Wall, the construction of the Wall itself and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Thank you, Mrs Kuhlmann, for the idea with the towels.

If there are no 2 doors, the towels are simply stretched across the classroom, window side / door side.

Mauersegemente the Berlin Wall are all over the world. They are a warning, but also a hope for a better world. Even today, many walls and barriers separate people from each other. And although these do not – like the wall between East and West – split the world, they often interfere with the lives of many people. Currently there are about 70 border barriers and walls in the world. Strung together, they would go around the world once! This was also an issue in the class (4th-6th grades). Where are some of these "stonewall", who or what do they separate, who do they want to prevent from entering and why?.